From: Robin Hanson (hanson@econ.berkeley.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 14 1999 - 10:04:25 MDT
On 4/13/99, Wei Dai wrote:
>>Perhaps most puzzling is the failure to use any significant
>>fraction of the resources at each solar system. Human populations
>>around a star are never more than "billions", and we see nothing
>>like wholesale conversion of asteroids and comets. "Sooner or later
>>[each system] ossified and politics carried it into a fall."
>
>I think the central assumption Vinge used here is that no stable forms of
>social organization are possible in the Slow Zone, ... Even the most
>stable organizational forms become increasingly unstable as a civilization
>develops technologically and economically, eventually suffering a
>catastrophic collapse. The Slow Zone governments must try to delay this
>collapse by restricting economic growth and research ...
This theory needs to be augmented to explain why the "no organization"
organization fails. Across the thousands of stars there is a weak
organization via trade that doesn't seem to threaten the total human
region. So why couldn't the same weak ties work within a star's system?
Why couldn't a solar system fragment into thousands of places each of
which was organized internally, but where ties between places were weak?
>>These falls are very severe, often requiring re colonization from
>>the outside, and otherwise seem to require rebuilding from
>>scratch. This is much more severe than the fall of the Roman
>>Empire, for example. ...
>
>We also see biological weapons, which should be sufficient.
I'm not yet persuaded of that. If bio weapons can kill all the
humans in a star system, why doesn't it spread to other star
systems via the trading ships? If trading ships can block
the spread, why can't places within a star's system use the
same approach?
Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar FAX: 510-643-8614
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 510-643-1884
after 8/99: Assist. Prof. Economics, George Mason Univ.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:03:32 MST